Poll: Voters divided between parties in 2014 battle for House

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Poll: Voters divided between parties in 2014 battle for House

(CNN) — A year and a half before the 2014 midterm elections, Americans are divided on whether they’ll back Democrats or Republicans in the battle for Congress, according to a new national poll.

A Quinnipiac University survey released Thursday indicates voters nationwide are split at 38% on whether they’d back the Democrat or GOP candidate if elections for all 435 members of the House of Representatives were held today. A fifth of those questioned were unsure.

The generic ballot question asks respondents if they would vote for a Democrat or Republican in their congressional district, without naming any specific candidates. It’s used by many polling organization, including CNN/ORC International surveys.

In Quinnipiac’s previous poll, released at the beginning of May, the Democrats had a slight 41%-37% edge in the generic ballot. An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in mid-May had the Democrats with a 48%-40% advantage.

In the new Quinnipiac survey, independent voters were leaning towards the Republican candidate by a 36%-23% margin, with one in three unsure.

Only three in ten say they approve of the job congressional Democrats are doing, with less than a quarter giving a thumbs up to Republicans in Congress.

The GOP currently has a 234-201 advantage in the House. The Democrats need to win back 17 seats next year to win back control of the chamber.

The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted May 22-28, with 1,419 registered voters nationwide questioned by telephone. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.